[Lexicog] part of speech in E-V

[Jan F. Ullrich]

Jimm

Thank you for your thoughtful letter.
I agree that teaching a language as a tool of communication should not be based on methods involving abstract linguist terminology. On the other hand, being aware of the underlying structures of a language and classification of part of speech is of much help to any one who teaches the language, whether he is a native speaker or not.

I believe that one of the main purposes of a dictionary is not only to define words, but also to classify them. Therefore I think that a good dictionary has to mark part of speech of the target language words. Our Lakota dictionary naturally marks part of speech of Lakota words in the Lakota-English section. My uncertainty dealt with marking part of speech in the English-Lakota section. Whether or not it should be marked for the Lakota words and how to do that.
I think that many dictionary users do not pay attention to the grammatical information (such as POS), but it is important to include it nevertheless. Advanced language learners, teachers of the language or linguist benefit from it. We do our best to make the grammatical information so that it does not stand in the way of the visual surface clarity and user-friendliness of the dictionary.

I also agree that students best learn from examples. Almost every entry in our 20,000 entry Lakota dictionary includes one or more example sentences and collocations. We also give conjugation paradigm under each verb.

Thank you for the illustrations from your dictionary, very interesting!  And good luck in your continuous work.

Best regards

Jan



-----Original Message-----
From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com [mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of goodtracks at peoplepc.com
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 7:13 AM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] part of speech in E-V


 The question is - are there other disadvantages for such strategy? Does it for instance make the English-Lakota section less user friendly or less clear?

Jan:
Your final questions here delves into the heart and purpose of your work.  There is an axiom stating:  Keep in mind the audience for whom you write (or something to that effect).  In your situation and mine, we write primarily for the benefit of the community who speaks the language or are for their heirs to the language, and who now are students in learning their indigenous community language.  

I am aware that for the Lakota Dakota communities, there is a 100 year (plus) literary tradition that is more or less familiar to the current residents, who have varying degrees of literary ability in their language.  Not so, for the Baxoje Jiwere communities here on the Southern Plains.   Yet, the two Siouan groups of language learners have in common a general lack of familiarity with the complexities of their language, whether or not they have a spoken command.  

During the 1970s Oklahoma tribes language renaissance, the fluent elders were recruited to hold language classes.  It became evident that they knew how to speak it and express themselves in their language, but they really did not know how to teach it (present it) to effect any kind substantive speaking ability among the student learners, many who were adults.

Now getting back to your inquiry on giving parts of speech for the L/D entry (OR)  the B/J entry here for me, was then as it is now irrelevant for the most part to the language students -- adults and children alike.  They were not especially astute as to what constitutes the difference between a transitive vs intransitive verb, or an adverb, etc. even as it applied for English (which often was the students only language and the one for which they had formal classroom instruction).  They did not care if, as in your examples, "sapa" was a  noun, verb (t/i), verb stative or adjective.  They wanted to know how to use the word to express their thoughts.  They needed and wanted to know how the word is used, as in, "Sunkawakan sapa kin le yelo"  (This is a black horse) from the words use in "Nanpe micisapa yelo" (My hand is black) or "Nanpe sapmak^iya..." (He caused my hand to be black).  

For the advanced language student, identifying the word and its variations by the more correct part of speak as it fits the L/D grammar will be useful.  However, the typical language students that I have found in recent years, preferred that I did not use p.o.s. during instruction as it tended to cloud and confuse them and cause many to loose their focus.  For me, it is more efficient and expedient to use at least a minimal set of grammatical terms.  However, I am there for the student learner, and so, I needfully adjust what is most condusive to their learning process.  

So in short, the POS are most useful to grammarians and linguists, and not the language community learner.  While I compose the dictionary so that it will be useful to the linguists as well, it first and foremost, must serve the needs of the particular language community for whom it is intended to benefit.  
Another axiom is:  Keep it simple.  So I strive for visual surface clearity.

It is customary to give a part of speech for the English word in the dictionary,  and so I do so on the English section.  On the Baxoje Jiwere section, I follow English custom by giving all applicable parts of speech which to the entry, but for sub-entries I forego it.  For example:

wábage; iwábage (old); (wapak^e (DOR))  n/adj/v.i.   blood; bloody; bleed. [W.wa^í; Om/P.wamí; Os.wabin; D. we].    …. raxíge; iwábage raxíge,  spit up blood.  .  **SEE:  wán^sha; blood; spit. 

 Eventually, I will supply examples of use of the entry word "wabage" in sentences for all the varied uses above.  

I continue to do in the same manner for verbs.
wabé   v.t.   throw away, throw out s.t.:   (I..., wábe; you..., warábe; we..., hinwábewi; they..., wabéñe).    [NOTE:  wábe, I throw away [wa-(something) + há-(I) + bé (abandon; leave; discard, throw away)].    Dagúare warábewida  mitáwe ke,  Whatever it was you (plural) threw away,  it was mine.
In the above verb example, the glossed meaning of the compound term is simply verb transitive.  Not a meaningfull fact for the student learners in my sessions.  What is more useful to them is the main conjugation forms.  Because the 1ps is also a contraction, I supply an analysis of the contraction to serve as a visual explaination for the student learner.  This is followed by the use of the term in a sentence context.  I include the word "plural" in italics in the English sentence, so as the reader will be able to constrast the 2ps in the conjugations, from the 2pp in the sentence example. 

wahá  v.i.   1. show, present; view; show suddently.  2. stretch out; present to view.  3. push forward, that one may see (DOR).  4. raise the hand; wave the hand:  (I..., hapáha; you..., swáha; we..., hinwáhawi; they..., waháñe).    Náwe gwáha ke,  He raised his hand.    Ángiwahañe to,  Let them show it to me!    Šwaré k^irána náwe wahá máñi ke,  Now and then he raised his hand.  (waha (DOR)).  [Om/P/Os. baha; Os. nanbe baha, show the hand as when taking an oath; D.paha, raise to strike; apaha, raise over; pazo (DOR)]. wahá réhi (DOR),     push forward suddently so one may see.    waháha, raise (& wave hand); wave (at s.o.).    waháhi,  cause another to show an object (DOR):  (I..., waháha; you..., wahára; we..., waháhinwi; they..., waháhiñe).  (wahahi (DOR)).  [Om/P. bahakidhe; D. pazokiya (DOR)].  **SEE:  waháye.
  **  awáha,  wave, make motion at s.o..    giwáha ~ giwáhaha,  wave s.t.    náwe giwáhaha,  wave the hand.    wahádan (waghatan (DOR)),  make stiff by rising (dough).    mín wawáha,  wave a blanket (to give alarm of approaching enemy) (arch.).  **SEE:  wave.   
In this unfinished entry, there are several glosses, followed by the four main conjugation forms.  The entry does not indicate that "wa-" is an instrumental prefix indicating that the action was performed by some manner of pushing by hand.  This information was made under the separate entry "wa-   (an inseparable instrumental prefix) .....".  Subsequent variants of the word were not listed with an identifying part of speech; However, I will eventually have each term with the four main conjugated forms, and illustrative sentences that will use the subentry in context.

I hope the above examples from my Baxoje Jiwere Dictionary (first revision) demonstrate my approach to your initial question, namely, that all possible POS are indicated for the initial native entry, but not for any following subentry variants of the word.  The intragrated usage of the entry word is followed by illustrative sentence that allow for a contextual reference.  My format for doing so, is made in the effort to provide the community language learners essential information in a consistant simple manner with a minimum of non-essential information (for their purposes), yet attempting to address a larger general audience as well.  

Jimm

PS:  I looked up your publications books Level One & Two on the Consortium site.  I'm hoping the Tribe here will loosen up some funds to purchase the two books for reference resources.  
Best Regards as you continue along in your Lakota project.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: Jan F. Ullrich 
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2007 4:32 AM
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] part of speech in E-V


Ron

Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I have send you some examples in a PDF
attachment off-list (since I don't know if Yahoo groups allows
attachements), but I want to make another comment here:

> black
> black (adj.) sapa
> black (n.), the color black (Lakota word)
> black (v.), to black sth. (Lakota word)

I understand your reasoning.
But Lakota lacs a noun and an adjective for "black" and on the other hand it
has other words for "black" that fall into other part of speech categories.
So it makes me think, wouldn't it be more "emic" to indicate the Lakota part
of speech, rather than that of the English headword:

black
sapa vs. to be black
asapa vs. to be black on the surface
sapsapa vs-red. to black in each case (inanimate plural)
sabyA vt. to paint sth black
sabic'iya vrefl. to blacken oneself
sabkicichiya vben. to blacken smth for sb
sabya adv. in a black condition

I think that such reflecting of the Lakota part of speech inventory for
'black', rather than the English inventory might be of advantage for the
language learner or dictionary user, to make them think in grammatical terms
of the Lakota language, which is the language of the primary concern in the
dictionary.

I agree this strategy might get more complicated to implement in complex
entries, but I don't think it is impossible to keep this approach
consistent. The question is - are there other disadvantages for such
strategy? Does it for instance make the English-Lakota section less user
friendly or less clear?

Jan


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